Virgin Galactic To Tackle Climate Change

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Space Flight due to start launching tourists into outer space for £110,000 a ticket by 2009 / 2010. The tickets have been on sale since 2005 and the craft is due to be completed next year and then tested for 12-18 months before the commercial trips begin. The Virgin Galactic is looking to be the world's first Spaceline also serving a greater purpose to tackle climate change. The Craft will have monitoring instruments to gather data on levels of greenhouse gases such as CO2 in relatively understudied regions of the Earth's atmosphere, such as the upper stratosphere, mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Virgin Galactic would collaborate with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which produces environmental data, including weather forecasts and climate information.

The Virgin Galactic will be launched from mothership the 'White Knight' to take tourists into space. It will support the rocket called Space Ship Two, which will separate at 52,000ft taking passengers into sub-orbit.

Sir Richard announced the initiative during a video message to thousands of space industry delegates at the 59th International Astronautical Congress being held in Glasgow this week.

He said: 'To my mind there is no greater or more immediate challenge than that posed by climate change.

'It's therefore more than fitting that the very first science to be conducted on board our new vehicles may be specifically directed at increasing our understanding and knowledge of the atmosphere and from there, to better inform our decisions as to the most effective ways of dealing with climate change.'

Also, Virgin Galactic turned down a $ 1 million offer to play a sex video while the participants float free in Zero Gravity ! Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, said the offer, from an unidentified party, "was $1 million, up front, for a sex-in-space movie. That was money we had to refuse, I'm afraid."

Jack Rabbits rarely think out of the box don't they ? Now they wanna take the box along wherever they go ...